Probably A Dumb Question..

[daymine]

but I need to dechlorinate the water before I can cycle. correct?

 

[fluttermoth]

Yes, you do. As chlorine kills the bacteria, you have no chance of growing any with chlorine in there

 

[saltynay]

no such thing as a dumb question we all have to start somewhere . It does help to give a brief idea of the item for discussion in the topic title though.

You don't have to dechlorinate the water if you allow it to sit for 24 hours then it will off gas the chlorine but the heavy metals will remain. For the first time filling up I don't use water conditioner as there is no bacteria to kill in the filter so it can't do any harm. Once you are cycling though you need to either use dechlorinator for rapid dechlorination or put the water in a bucket and allow it to sit for 24 hours before adding it to the tank. Otherwise you will get a massive loss in bacteria levels causing you to start from scratch

 

[daymine]

ok thanks guys!

 

[waterdrop]

Well, unless the city uses chloramines instead of chlorine. It's easy for there to be a mistake about this. Sometimes the city website or information may be out of date and still say they use chlorine when in fact their lab has switched to adding chloramines to the tap water. Chloramines will stick around for quite a long time, killing bacteria. So unless you are quite certain (actually speaking to an authoritative lab person for instance) I would take the inexpensive precaution of using a good conditioner product.

Most of us like and use Seachem Prime and highly recommend it to beginners because it seems to be the best at handling some of the mistakes that can happen, but mostly because it is also so concentrated that it's value is very high. The bottle lasts and lasts.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. Welcome to our beginners section!

 

[saltynay]

Well, unless the city uses chloramines instead of chlorine. It's easy for there to be a mistake about this. Sometimes the city website or information may be out of date and still say they use chlorine when in fact their lab has switched to adding chloramines to the tap water. Chloramines will stick around for quite a long time, killing bacteria. So unless you are quite certain (actually speaking to an authoritative lab person for instance) I would take the inexpensive precaution of using a good conditioner product.

Experimental paper on Chloramine removal:
http/ajdel.wetnewf.org:81/Brewing_articles/BT_Chlorine.pdf

 

[waterdrop]

Wow! Very interesting paper, thanks for the link. (maybe I can go back to my idea of storing up a big water change worth so I can get rid of the CO2 swings that cause black brush algae!) I haven't read the whole paper yet. How many days did it make you feel should be used to lower chloramine to levels that wouldn't bother bacteria?

WD

 

[saltynay]

Well you would need to get the data from your local council but from my council the maths said I could boil the water for 15 minutes and rid it of chloroamines or leave it outside for 16 hours provided it is summer and there is a breeze over the water or some other type of occasional disturbance.

So 24 hours is still a safe number for leaving to sit if you have particularly sensitive fish then you may want to leave it longer.

 

[daymine]

Thanks guys!